Spring sports in name only

We almost made it.

Now that the schedule has moved over to spring sports, I was hoping that the temperatures might reflect the end of a rain and snow-based winter. Hoping the ground hog might poke his little head out and call quits for the rest of us that don’t find ice fishing much fun.

I started the baseball season off in Quincy last Friday to a heat wave of a 61-degree temperature. Seeing the sun reflecting off the sign saying “Home of the 2014 state champions,” did an old body good. The game looked like a couple of teams that hadn’t played on dirt yet, but it was sunny and warm, like the Boys of Summer was meant to be.

Cody Kehl is headed to Edmonds Community College next year. The Quincy senior stroked a double into the right-center power alley his first at-bat of 2017. I could tell he had thoughts of stretching into a triple as he rounded second. But if he pulled a hamstring in the first game trying to make something out of nothing, I’m sure Jacks coach Andy Harris would have grabbed a shovel and buried him right there where he lay. Kehl did have a legitimate triple later in the game.

That was it, end of sunshine, end of warm. That little runt ground hog pulled his head back in, and we can only hope it doesn’t mean six more months of rain and slop. The clouds and 30-something degree temperatures were back on Saturday for the Othello soccer season opener. Now I’m sure it seemed like a heat wave to Naches Valley, which still had snow on their soccer field. The team hadn’t even been outside yet, so playing on wet, sloggy grass was probably a treat, right up until they ran into the buzz saw of Othello strikers Juan Tapia, Frankie Ramos and Reese Jones, who had two goals apiece in a 8-nil victory.

If I’d seen that little rat ground hog later that afternoon, I’d of given him what-for with a fungo for the weather at the Othello baseball season opener. Now the boys did usher in the Sonny Garza era as head coach with a sweep of Bellingham. But it was cold, it was rainy it was so not like the pictures coming out of Spring Training. They had to stop the game and put down the kitty litter on the mound and batter’s box.

T.J. Martinez finished up with a mud streak on his uniform that started on the collar and ended on his knees after trying to take third on a single to the outfield. I wouldn’t really call it a slide. It was more like a stuck because he hit the dirt and stopped. Got tagged out laying there like a fish out of water, but such is baseball in the Pacific Northwest.

So if anybody sees that little rat of a ground hog, give him a kick in the pants and tell him we’re ready for some sunshine, because we’re off and running with the spring stuff.

Rodney Harwood is a sports writer for the Columbia Basin Herald and can be reached at rharwood@columbiabasinherald.com